Devil's Masquerade
by Fen Jien Ren
Summary: / REWRITTEN / Do not be surprised, for in reality, I too can feel. My emotions were just not kept within my corporeal body, but was existing inside somebody else. However, he was, in all honesty, nothing but a monster.


**Devil's Masquerade.**

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**"_It's not fair to show someone the sun and then banish him from it.  
For even the Devil may cry when he looks around hell  
and realizes that he is all there alone."_  
-- Devil May Cry, the novel.

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I fell in love with a monster.

Even before everything started, I knew this fact already. I held it deep within, somewhere inside me—perhaps by my empty chest—in hopes that my mind had not concluded a lie. Do not be surprised, for in all reality, I too can feel. The heart, which I lost and in search for, is not the source of emotions contrary to what the humans claim. Emotions reside in our heads, in our brains. Ahead of this discovery, my brain had already done sufficient wonders that it proved to be valuable of my trust; therefore, I find no rationality in disbelieving. After all, I rather hold on to this than to say that I am more incomplete of a being than I used to think that I already am.

I refuse to listen to trash than to what my eyes have already proved to be factual. I may not have a heart, as all other Hollows do so as well, but I see not an absence of their emotions. From this, I understood that somewhere inside me lie these _emotions_. I searched for it. Day and night, I allotted time for myself to search for this source. Before, I did not know it was possible, but when _we_ clashed one time, I found out the reason why my emotions were more deficient than the other Arrancars who also have their mark as a Hollow on their chest. I realized that my emotions were not kept within my corporeal body, but was existing inside somebody else.

"Ulquiorra," I heard him say and it made my body shiver with his voice so low and so strong. Whenever he would call my name, it would reach me as if he was whispering in my ear... as if he was close enough to me that he need not to strain himself in order speak. When I close my eyes, he is gently holding me and at that moment, I could feel my chest throb like I was not an empty shell or shredded skin of a human that no longer was.

In amidst of our short conversations, I always feel so alive_._

Although no matter how rapt I am to the dancing sensations in my chest, I never got to show him what his mere voice does to me, because I could not imagine what it would be like if he would do more than just to speak to me. Maybe my chest would explode, maybe I would feel more of _my_ emotions that he keeps inside him, or maybe I would just fall lifeless under his mercy. Whichever it would be, I no longer have any plans of letting it become a reality because I know it would consume me until I can not live any longer without it.

I chose to push him away, to make him despise me or anything that he must hold against me so he would come not near. The emotions overwhelm me, I do not lie, but it is for this reason I can not let him be with me too often. My mind would come restless whenever he is near, but in the same time I feel so calm. In his presence, I forget everything that logic had taught me, because beneath his gaze I forget even myself.

"I tend to observe the habit of not associating myself with trash," my lips moved and let such words flow past them in my desperate attempt to find peace through the thumping of my chest, but at that moment, I could process things just fine. I was not feeling dizzy nor was I distracted with things that revolved around the future if I would rather walk to him and ask him to share the emotions that were truly mine. "So if there is nothing important that we need to discuss about, I suggest you to be on your way and I shall take my leave."

The way those eyes burned and bore holes into me made my skin crawl, but nonetheless allocated my emotions back to me. It is during this time that I actually found it difficult to keep the words that I had said. After that rendezvous, for the first time in my life, I felt something without I even feeling his reiatsu. However, I was not able to ignore the fact that he was still the cause of the sudden... retribution of my emotions, but I did everything I could to not betray my own words.

I wasn't able to keep it as long as I thought I could.

For months I was able to keep myself deprived of what I have been interested in my entire life-time. A part of me, although completely illogical, was screaming in pain for what I have been starving myself of. I was... _missing_ him somehow. Throughout the stressful days I kept myself isolated and the darkest of night that I find myself somewhat incomplete, in my mind I would picture him there, standing somewhere so close to me.

Calling ever so softly, _"Ulquiorra,"_

Gratification, although I debate to feel such, is what takes me whenever I recall his voice in a way that the warmth it gives would spill all around my body. Through the endless desert that we call our world, I search for answers why, of all people, was he the one that may emotions chose to retreat to. If I was not abandoned by them, I knew I wouldn't be in such a crisis.

With this empty body, I still could feel the grudge that he holds against me. We had just clashed through the endless pristine halls of Las Noches, and I could see in his eyes that the fire within him has not wavered even just a little. If anything, it was even growing ever so quickly, and one day, without a doubt, it will consume him. His hating for me will devour him someday, sometime... so soon.

Honestly, I am unaware of what it was that I had been doing that drove him into such a state, but whatever it was, it served its purpose just well. I may feel so lost and empty, but the fact that I was still in total control of myself willed me to go on. However, I can not ignore the fact that within myself, in all reality, I am afraid that he will come to me and consume me at the same moment that he gets consumed himself.

There is no guilt that is with that thought. Only fear, for I have lost myself once and I refuse to lose it again. However, I understood so much to be able to accept that such thing was inevitable. Someday it will come, he will consume me, and there is nothing that I can do but wait for the days to pass until it is my last. What I was unable to comprehend though, was why did I brought it upon myself?

I was mindless at that moment, walking aimlessly through the forsaken kingdom, and when I regained myself, I was in a state that I could no longer back down or, rather, he would not let me back down. He was already devoured, his eyes screamed at me. I had the chance to fight or flee, but I did no such thing. The most unbelievable words slipped out of my lips.

I can never understand why I chose those words to say out of the millions that were floating in my head. It was something so simple, and yet so stupid. It was something so humane that I would never believe it if it weren't my own ears that heard my own voice say these words:

"Love me."

And then, I was devoured but not the way I was expecting to be devoured. I realized just how much of a monster _emotions_ can make out from a single creature. I thought I was murdered, but I was not. So I thought it was love, but it hurt. However, I found no reason to fight, because all throughout, there were the emotions in my chest—crawling all over my skin. Was this how it felt like to have them abundantly?

"Ulquiorra," he breathed at my ear as he pushed his warm hands up my naked chest.

It felt so wrong.

"Ulquiorra."

And the emotions that once and should've been there were all in absence. I did not feel but the ominous feeling in the back of my head that I was being threatened. Gone were the emotions that would cloud my judgment frighteningly yet beautifully, and gone was the Espada that was deft and powerful. Gone was my adoration to man that my emotions chose to run to. Gone was my wish to feel anything but nothing.

Gone was I who was lost in nothing but pain.

I was immobile. In the rawness of his hatred, he spoke to me like a starved predator, making me dazed and hollow of logic although it was not the same as how I used to have them. In the million times he said my name, I no longer had the rush of emotions in my chest. Although I could feel my hair standing on ends, I was certain it was not because what I lost was coming back to me, but rather because I was denying them.

In that short span of time, I understood life and how to live it. I understood death and what would happen if I disappear. In his arms, I saw the difference in all levels of pain, because beneath him I, as he had said, have no choice but learn it, but I knew it must stop.

So, stop, but he wouldn't listen.

Stop, but I didn't know how to stop.

If this was life, then life is a curse, but if death was without him, then I'd rather live this curse; however... what was initially there was no longer present. The purpose of my actions had fled somewhere else. I had no lead, no idea where else to head.

I decided to stay where I was, decided to come back to him every time he would offer me a space in his arms. It was the place where I last found my life, my _emotions_. He still had some of it, but not all. In his arms, I feel not the warmth nor the tranquility of myself. I feel pain as he said I would learn so much about. It was not the best of things, but it was better than feeling nothing.

"Love me," I would ask in a desperate search of what was now untraceable no matter where I go. My emotions that once fled to him, now fled _from_ him. I was now even emptier than before, even more lost, but he insisted on offering his _love_ if I would offer myself. I'm not one who really knew what love is, so I took whatever he would give.

Love was painful.

"I love you, Ulquiorra." He whispered in my ear so softly as if it was the gravest of truth—something which can not be heard, or something that should not be said.

So, love was a lie, or so his eyes would always tell me during this time.

"I will _never _hurt you." And when he moves away, I will see in his eyes that he despises it... that it is, as his eyes say, nothing but a lie. Nonetheless, I will cling to it like my life is on the line, because these words alone would send me to what should've been happiness and fulfillment if only my emotions had not fled to someone else. "Trust me."

But love was this, because this was what he gives me.

"Hold on to me."

But he's a monster.

He lies.

.

.

.

.

_Somebody love me._

I cry.

_

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_**FEN:** I don't know if this is any better than the first version, but I think I was able to convey Ulquiorra's emotions much better this time.


End file.
